The report says pesticides have “catastrophic impacts on the environment, human health and society as a whole”, including an estimated 200,000 deaths a year from acute poisoning. Its authors said: “It is time to create a global process to transition toward safer and healthier food and agricultural production.”

The world’s population is set to grow from 7 billion today to 9 billion in 2050. The pesticide industry argues that its products – a market worth about $50bn (£41bn) a year and growing – are vital in protecting crops and ensuring sufficient food supplies.

“It is a myth,” said Hilal Elver, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food. “Using more pesticides is nothing to do with getting rid of hunger. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), we are able to feed 9 billion people today. Production is definitely increasing, but the problem is poverty, inequality and distribution.”

Elver said many of the pesticides are used on commodity crops, such as palm oil and soy, not the food needed by the world’s hungry people: “The corporations are not dealing with world hunger, they are dealing with more agricultural activity on large scales.”

The new report, which is co-authored by Baskut Tuncak, the UN’s special rapporteur on toxics, said: “While scientific research confirms the adverse effects of pesticides, proving a definitive link between exposure and human diseases or conditions or harm to the ecosystem presents a considerable challenge. This challenge has been exacerbated by a systematic denial, fuelled by the pesticide and agro-industry, of the magnitude of the damage inflicted by these chemicals, and aggressive, unethical marketing tactics.”
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Elver, who visited the Philippines, Paraguay, Morocco and Poland as part of producing the report, said: “The power of the corporations over governments and over the scientific community is extremely important. If you want to deal with pesticides, you have to deal with the companies – that is why [we use] these harsh words. They will say, of course, it is not true, but also out there is the testimony of the people.”

She said some developed countries did have “very strong” regulations for pesticides, such as the EU, which she said based their rules on the “precautionary principle”. The EU banned the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which harm bees, on flowering crops in 2013, a move strongly opposed by the industry. But she noted that others, such as the US, did not use the precautionary principle.

Elver also said that while consumers in developed countries are usually better protected from pesticides, farms workers often are not. In the US, she, said, 90% of farm workers were undocumented and their consequent lack of legal protections and health insurance put them at risk from pesticide use.

“The claim that it is a myth that farmers need pesticides to meet the challenge of feeding 7 billion people simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,” said a spokesman for the Crop Protection Association, which represents pesticide manufacturers in the UK. “The UN FAO is clear on this – without crop protection tools, farmers could lose as much as 80% of their harvests to damaging insects, weeds and plant disease.”

“The plant science industry strongly agrees with the UN special rapporteurs that the right to food must extend to every global citizen, and that all citizens have a right to food that has been produced in a way that is safe for human health and for the environment,” said the spokesman. “Pesticides play a key role in ensuring we have access to a healthy, safe, affordable and reliable food supply.”

The report found that just 35% of developing countries had a regulatory regime for pesticides and even then enforcement was problematic. It also found examples of pesticides banned from use in one country still being produced there for export.

It recommended a move towards a global treaty to govern the use of pesticides and a move to sustainable practices including natural methods of suppressing pests and crop rotation, as well as incentivising organically produced food.

The report said: “Chronic exposure to pesticides has been linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, hormone disruption, developmental disorders and sterility.” It also highlighted the risk to children from pesticide contamination of food, citing 23 deaths in India in 2013 and 39 in China in 2014. Furthermore, the report said, recent Chinese government studies indicated that pesticide contamination meant farming could not continue on about 20% of arable land.

“The industry frequently uses the term ‘intentional misuse’ to shift the blame on to the user for the avoidable impacts of hazardous pesticides,” the report said. “Yet clearly, the responsibility for protecting users and others throughout the pesticide life cycle and throughout the retail chain lies with the pesticide manufacturer.”

Izvorni izvještaj: “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food”, A/HRC/34/48 24. siječnja 2017.,
»In the report, a clearer account is provided of global pesticide use in agriculture and its impact on human rights; the negative consequences that pesticide practices have had on human health, the environment and society, which are underreported and monitored in the shadow of a prevailing and narrow focus on “food security”, are described« (str. 1)

»Proponents of systemic pesticides and genetically engineered crops claim that by eliminating liquid spraying, the risk of exposure to farm workers and other non-target organisms is greatly reduced. However, further studies of chronic exposure are needed to determine the extent of the impact of systemic pesticides and genetically engineered crops on human health, beneficial insects, soil ecosystems and aquatic life. For example, transgenic corn and soybean varieties have been developed that are capable of producing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) endotoxins that act as insecticides. While the use of Bt crops has led to a reduction in conventional synthetic insecticide use, controversy remains about the possible risks posed by these crops.« (str. 10)

»The prime example of controversy around genetically engineered crops is glyphosate, the active ingredient of some herbicides, including Roundup, that allow farmers to kill weeds but not their crops. While presented as less toxic and persistent compared to traditional herbicides, there is considerable disagreement over the impact of glyphosate on the environment: studies have indicated negative impacts on biodiversity, wildlifend soil nutrient content.46 There are also concerns regarding human health. In 2015, WHO announced that glyphosate was a probable carcinogen.« (str. 10)
»In Europe, genetically engineered crop regulations exemplify the precautionary principle. If an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus, the burden of proof falls on those taking the action or policy to demonstrate that it is not harmful. In contrast, in the United States, the biggest producer of genetically engineered crops,48 regulations have generally followed the concept of “substantial equivalence”, whereby a novel crop or food is compared to an existing one and if judged adequately similar, it falls under existing regulations.49 Considering their probable grave effects on health and the environment, there is an urgent need for holistic regulation on the basis of the precautionary principle to address the genetically engineered production process and other new technologies at the global level.« (str. 10-11)